One mana basic land cycling seem strong, especially if you support colorless. I like that this works well with crucible / loam, I think I'm going to give this card a spin.
I think this is much better than Terramorphic Expanse. Landcycling Ash is the same as playing Terramorphic in terms of quantity of mana, but it gets you your missing color immediately. Ash also gives you the option of an untapped colorless source if you just need to hit your curve, and landcycling at instant speed is a nice bit of added mana flexibility.
That's a very powerful piece of fixing. It's an untapped land when you need it and a better Evolving Wilds when you don't. Talk about a major gift for cubers, can't wait to give this a spin.
I agree with others that this is one of he strongest cards in the set for Cube. Expanse and Wilds still do good work in my Cubes and this is sometimes better!
I don't think it's better than Expanse / Wilds since they have no cost to activate and work much better with Crucible / Loam. This card can be a huge hinderence if this is your only land in your opening hand.
I don't think it's better than Expanse / Wilds since they have no cost to activate and work much better with Crucible / Loam. This card can be a huge hinderence if this is your only land in your opening hand.
Expanse and wilds functionally cost 1 anyway, and theirs can't be paid at instant speed on the previous turn. I don't think situations where this is your only land are very practical of a comparison, because terramorphic is almost as abysmal in that case.
The terramorphics are somewhat better with crucible (notably worse with loam, really) but I think overall this works out to be better than terramorphic expanse by a nontrivial amount.
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I don't think it's better than Expanse / Wilds since they have no cost to activate and work much better with Crucible / Loam. This card can be a huge hinderence if this is your only land in your opening hand.
The cost to activate Expanse/Wilds is hidden in the basic entering tapped. In terms of quantity of mana, they're the same. Barrens is worse as your only land, but the increased flexibility more than makes up for it.
Barrens also works better than Expanse/Wilds with Loam, because you can landcycle every turn while also making other land drops when needed. You could also get a fetchland and landcycle every turn if you want, thinning your deck twice as fast and building your hand up.
I don't think it's better than Expanse / Wilds since they have no cost to activate and work much better with Crucible / Loam. This card can be a huge hinderence if this is your only land in your opening hand.
Those are niche situations. Generally speaking you shouldn't be keeping one-landers anyway, and I think this is actually better with Loam (though not Crucible) since you can use it repeatedly while not having to play an ETBT land every turn. As for the activation cost, Expanse/Wilds costs a virtual 1 anyway due to the land entering tapped. Barrens gives you more flexibility when it comes to the timing of how you pay that 1.
The upsides, on the other hand, are major. What are the two biggest flaws of Expanse/Wilds? Putting you down on mana for a turn and not having the ability to fix your mana the turn you play it. This neatly solves both problems.
You guys are probably right, this is a lot better than Expanse / Wilds in a lot of scenarios. Still, I don't feel comfortable saying it's outright better, not yet at least.
I don't think this is better than Wilds/Expanse. Significantly worse with Crucible, no landfall abuse and it's unplayable with 1-landers that would otherwise be keepable because of mana dorks (or deep mulliganing). It has the advantage of getting a missing untapped color/source later on (or providing C untapped instead of fetching a Wastes), but I'm not sure if that entirely makes up for it. I might test it out and see, but I think it's closer to being comparable to (rather than better than) Wilds/Expanse.
That being said, if I do cube a card from this set, this is likely going to be it. It's still universally playable fixing, and you can always do worse than that.
Are working with a few lands-matter cards and super-situational openings (I'm not keeping a Wilds/Dork hand unless I've already mulliganed, period) that comparable to having the option of an untapped land or immediate source of fixing? Don't get me wrong, I love funky fetchland interactions more than anybody alive, but interfering with curving out is basically the central problem of Wilds/Expanse.
There are some marginal cases where it's worse than Wilds, to be sure. But we don't have many landfall cards and the difference in win percentage between an N card hand with wilds as your only land and an N-1 card hand is pretty small. This is better with Loam and worse with Crucible.
On the other hand, tapped vs untapped can be huge, as can spending the mana on earlier turns or when you were holding instants up. Despite being worse in a couple of particular scenarios/with a few particular cards, I think at least 80-90% of cube decks I see that would play Wilds would rather play this.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
One mana basic land cycling seem strong, especially if you support colorless. I like that this works well with crucible / loam, I think I'm going to give this card a spin.
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One mana for basic cycling is a very low floor, and the ceiling of abusing it with Loam/Witness and other shenanigans seems pretty good to me.
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Expanse and wilds functionally cost 1 anyway, and theirs can't be paid at instant speed on the previous turn. I don't think situations where this is your only land are very practical of a comparison, because terramorphic is almost as abysmal in that case.
The terramorphics are somewhat better with crucible (notably worse with loam, really) but I think overall this works out to be better than terramorphic expanse by a nontrivial amount.
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)
Barrens also works better than Expanse/Wilds with Loam, because you can landcycle every turn while also making other land drops when needed. You could also get a fetchland and landcycle every turn if you want, thinning your deck twice as fast and building your hand up.
Those are niche situations. Generally speaking you shouldn't be keeping one-landers anyway, and I think this is actually better with Loam (though not Crucible) since you can use it repeatedly while not having to play an ETBT land every turn. As for the activation cost, Expanse/Wilds costs a virtual 1 anyway due to the land entering tapped. Barrens gives you more flexibility when it comes to the timing of how you pay that 1.
The upsides, on the other hand, are major. What are the two biggest flaws of Expanse/Wilds? Putting you down on mana for a turn and not having the ability to fix your mana the turn you play it. This neatly solves both problems.
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That being said, if I do cube a card from this set, this is likely going to be it. It's still universally playable fixing, and you can always do worse than that.
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On the other hand, tapped vs untapped can be huge, as can spending the mana on earlier turns or when you were holding instants up. Despite being worse in a couple of particular scenarios/with a few particular cards, I think at least 80-90% of cube decks I see that would play Wilds would rather play this.
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